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Apple Rolls Out WebKit2, But No Linux Love Yet

04-09-2010, 12:40 PM

Phoronix: Apple Rolls Out WebKit2, But No Linux Love Yet

WebKit, the layout engine designed by Apple that was originally derived from KDE's KHTML and since then has picked up support by Google within their Chrome/Chromium web browser, is used in parts of GNOME, and has been adopted elsewhere, just got a new Apple upgrade today. Apple has published what they are calling "WebKit2", which is a new WebKit framework they have been working on for their Safari web-browser...

This is why I dislike Apple, not nearly as much as MS, but certainly quite a bit. They should not just "accept patches for other OS's". They should contribute back to KHTML. If that's impractical, at the very least they could write a cross-platform engine, and make sure it works in Linux, which would mean KDE can jump to it, or at least merge things back to KHTML more easily.

Oh well.At least this bit of their work is Open Source (unlike most anything they do).

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Apple is doing the right think. They fork KHTML to create WebKit, the best layout engine today. People who complains that apple do not contribute back to KHTML should also complains to the Xorg developers that do not contribute back to xfree86 project..

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In the past i simply didn't care about Apple. It wasn't my choice, i prefered Linux for my work and Windows for some games and i never considered Apple products because i couldn't work effectively on them, since i am no designer, and i couldn't play on them except specific titles.

But i have began to hate this company and actively trying to harm it recently. My reasons are not about fanboism, my reasons are purely logical.

1) Apple is a purely marketing company. They have created a cult of followers who will not only buy anything on day 1 just because they have an apple logo, but will spam forums, blogs, IRC, IM web sites promoting these products to others. These people overlook Apple's disadvantages, rationalize lack of features, and justify paying premium price for lesser products. This hurts us as consumers. In many ways, which i will not explain now.

2) It is clear to me that Apple bribes certain "journalists" and certain people to post in forums/sites/blogs as "users". Of course this practice is not specific to Apple, many big companies do PR in this way. But Apple has crossed the line.

3) Apple is a closed ecosystem, unfriendly to developers like myself. And bad for the industry in general.

4)Apple only cares about flash and no substance. It may drive the design barrier but makes people ask for less tech. Sites like Arstechnica reviewed recently the iPad and they had the nerve to say that lack of multitasking is a relief and it makes their lives easier, only to celebrate a few days later for the upcoming addition of multitasking as a great evolution of Apple software...

5) I am a tech guy, and tech is all i care. I am no fanboi of a company, but i want the best product to win every time, in order to create competition and improve the tech overall. Apple's efforts hinder that.

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um, webkit2 ... Patches accepted. You can use named pipes on linux also (it would be different but stil IPC). There are many other IPC options, they just haven't gotten around to it. I think Chromium might be using them also, I haven't finished reading that link. I suspect Qt (Nokia) will quickly add Linux support and this will quickly become a trivial mannor.

OR DID U READ THE ARTICLE?

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The lack of multitasking is actually an awesome usability decision by Apple for the iPad (ofcourse it has multitasking on the tech level, otherwise you couldn't not operate it with touchscreen while you listened to music and see the app respond to what you do);

The iPad is not made to be a full blown computer, allthough listening to music while doing anything might be nice while reading a book.

Apple isn't that bad. Actually I wished it would get a monopoly on operating systems for a while and then collapse after a while (and it will)